CHAPTER XXXVIII.
EMBARKATION—AN INUNDATED PLAIN—RIO CHICO—THE USUMACINTA—RIO PALISADA—YUCATAN—MORE REVOLUTIONS—VESPERS—EMBARKATION FOR THE LAGUNA—SHOOTING ALLIGATORS—TREMENDOUS STORM—BOCA CHICO—LAKE OF TERMINOS—A CALM, SUCCEEDED BY A TEMPEST—ARRIVAL AT THE LAGUNA.
At seven o'clock we went down to the shore to embark. The boatmen whom the juez had consulted, and for whom he had been so tenacious, were his honour himself and another man, who, we thought, was hired as the cheapest help he could find in the village. The canoe was about forty feet long, with a toldo or awning of about twelve feet at the stern, and covered with matting. All the space before this was required by the boatmen to work the canoe, and, with all our luggage under the awning, we had but narrow quarters. The seeming lake on which we started was merely a large inundated plain, covered with water to the depth of three or four feet; and the juez in the stern, and his assistant before, walking in the bottom of the canoe, with poles against their shoulders, set her across. At eight o'clock we entered a narrow, muddy creek, not wider than a canal, but very deep, and with the current against us. The setting-pole could not touch the bottom, but it was forked at one end, and, keeping close to the bank, the bogador or rower fixed it against the branches of overhanging trees and pushed, while the juez, whose pole had a rude hook, fastened it to other branches forward, and pulled. In this way, with no view but that of the wooded banks, we worked slowly along the muddy stream. In turning a short bend, suddenly we saw on the banks eight or ten alligators, some of them twenty feet long, huge, hideous monsters, appropriate inhabitants of such a stream, and, considering the frailty of our little vessel, not very attractive neighbours. As we approached, they plunged heavily into the water, sometimes rose in the middle of the stream, and swam across or disappeared. At half past twelve we entered the Rio Chico or Little River, varying from 200 to 500 feet in width, deep, muddy, and very sluggish, with wooded banks of impenetrable thickness. At six o'clock we entered the great Usumasinta, 500 or 600 yards across, one of the noblest rivers in Central America, rising among the mountains of Peten, and emptying into the lake of Terminos.
At this point, the three provinces of Chiapas, Tobasco, and Yucatan meet, and the junction of the waters of the Usumasinta and the Rio
